There’s a specific conversation I frequently have with people around my age. As they get closer to middle adulthood and look back on everything they’ve learned about money, they start to wonder – why didn’t they teach us this stuff in school?

For whatever reason, the American education system is sorely lacking when it comes to personal finance education. You can easily enter adulthood without ever learning how to set up a budget, open a retirement account or build a respectable credit score. If school is supposed to set you up for success as an adult, that seems like a glaring blind spot.

That’s why it falls to parents to teach their kids about money. Here are some important topics to cover, and how to teach them lessons that will actually stick.

Share Your Mistakes

I grew up in a household where my parents were honest about money. They didn’t mind talking…